Government lotteries are major sources of revenue in the United States and foreign countries. Each year billion of dollars are collected to supplement taxes. The annual collections in the United States have matched the combined income of America's five most profitable corporations.
Lotteries have gained so high a degree of acceptance that it is believed that the United States government may soon adopt a national lottery for trimming its large budget deficits. Numerous foreign countries have already adopted national lotteries, including Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Australia, Ireland and Austria.
State and foreign lotteries vary considerably, especially between daily, weekly and semi-weekly lotteries. Daily lotteries require betters to match three or four digit numbers randomly selected at public drawings. Weekly and semi-weekly lotteries require betters to match sets of numbers randomly selected at public drawings. The number of choices given bettors in weekly and semi-weekly lotteries vary from 54 numbers in New York and Illinois to 25 numbers in West Virginia.
Lottery betting stations are generally found in retail establishments such as supermarkets, pharmacies and party stores. Bets are most often placed at the same check-out counters which retailers use for their ordinary business. Many betters do not select numbers until they are at a betting station. This causes congestion at check-out counters, especially when there are many betters because lottery prizes are high.
In my U.S. Pat. No. 5,358,245, an improved lottery number picker is disclosed. Although the number picker is easy to use, it is not deemed to be sufficiently compact to be more portable.
From the above, it will appreciated that if a compact, portable lottery number picker for daily, weekly and semi-weekly lotteries were available to betters, it would reduce the time for placing bets and relieve congestion at betting stations. The compact number picker would be welcomed by retailers as well as betters.
If the compact picker offered other benefits in addition to the benefit of picking lottery numbers for daily, weekly and semi-weekly lotteries, it would be more widely accepted.